Active - Passive Switch

The Active/Passive switch allows you to select between playing through the electronic preamp circuit and playing a true passive circuit. In the passive mode, the circuit bypasses the entire preamp and tone controls, connecting your pickups straight to a volume control and then to the output jack. This means you can play even without a battery installed. If the battery is installed while playing in passive mode you are still drawing power from the battery since the active mode is still operating, ready to be switched in.

Our design intent is that passive mode is available as an emergency backup, not as the normal playing style. The reason we do not recommend using passive mode routinely is that you are placing the capacitance of the guitar cable onto the pickups, in parallel with the resistance of any volume and balanced pots installed and the input capacitance and input resistance of the amplifier. Setting up a bass system this way works but your sound may be impacted if you change the components in your setup (amplifier, cable etc). In most passive setups the sound you hear will be equivalent to the pickup followed by a simple low pass filter at an audible frequency that is determined by the components of your system; this is why passive mode sounds different from active mode. If you like the way your bass sounds in this configuration with the rest of the gear you are using, then Passive mode is fine to use.

FYI - many of the amplifiers we have tested have different input parameters than is stated on the spec sheet so it may be hard to know how changing external equipment will affect your sound unless you can test the components with your bass. If you want to run in passive mode on a regular basis, you can connect the module to your existing passive balance control, or passive tone control pot/capacitor. Dual pots - one pot used in active mode and the other pot used in passive mode, would allow one balance control to be used in both modes. In theory, the pots would be dual units with the first pot being a 100K value and the 2nd pot being the value you have selected for your passive mode. This will allow you to control the loading in passive mode and still keep the lowest noise in active mode. It is often difficult to find the ideal pots in the ideal configurations and it maybe easier to use a dual pot of the value you chose for the passive mode. This will work fine and only cause the system noise to increase a minor amount.